Dear Readers,
Over the next few weeks Alicia Rose's story will come to you in six installments. This is Chapter Four from my book, "BETWEEN TWO PAGES:Children of Substance." Published by AuthorHouse.

Part One

ALICIA ROSE HULTIN
March 17, 1975 to January 23, 1999
Beloved Daughter of Terry and Dana Jordan,
Sister of Jennifer O’Donnell, Randi and Dana Jordan,
Loving Aunt of Riley Elizabeth O’Donnell

DEDICATED TO MY SWEET DAUGHTER

My name is Terry. My daughter Alicia committed suicide in January of
1999.

I found myself in a big black hole that many of us know so well. It does
at some point (that I attribute to my daughter putting her foot you-know where!)shine some light and then just a little more light until we move out
of that deep darkness.

My daughter went on methadone to try to get her life back. I was very
afraid of that because of the experience that I had with her biological father.
He was thrown out of a methadone clinic and he experienced horrible
withdrawals. So, I was well aware of the possibility of this happening to
Alicia Rose, if she didn’t follow the guidelines set forth by the powers that
be.

We live less than 15 minutes from where Alicia bought heroin. It’s a
world away, even though it’s only 15 minutes away. She no longer went
there, she would wait for hours at the hospital for a doctor to administer
legal medication to her so she could exist only to go through it the next day,
and the next, until a bed finally became available in the rehab center.
On methadone, Alicia would be heroin free. She did not want the street
drugs any longer! She was working and she was making plans for the first
time in years.

She was doing very well. Then she was raped! As a result, she suffered
from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in addition to her bipolar disorder. The
methadone clinic doctor put her on Klonopin for the PTSD.

One evening I took Alicia Rose to her scheduled appointment. There
was a sign on the methadone clinic door that the doctor would not be in that
night or for the next 2 weeks and that the scheduled patients would have to
make another appointment in order to get their medications. My daughter
had been told, after her first few visits with this clinic doctor, that she could go to her family physician for the treatment of the PTSD. (Post Traumatic
Stress Disorder)

So there we were! She needed the medication and couldn’t wait two
weeks to get an appointment with the clinic doctor, so I took her to our
family Physician who was well aware of Alicia’s problems and that she was
on methadone for heroin addiction. He then began to treat her for the PTSD.
Sadly, she never made another appointment with the methadone clinic
doctor.

The methadone clinic was very upset that she was treated by her family
physician. As a result they started saying that she was showing ‘dirty urines’
for benzo’s (the Klonopin). They refused to release her records to our family
physician even after she had signed several release forms and then they did
what I had been afraid of, they put her on a bogus Administrative Detox
because of her so called dirty urines. Surely they must have known the dirty
urines were because of the Klonopin!

Part Two next week.